I am working with a KD who has an interior designer, but I figure I can always use extra help. For our kitchen, we really want to bring the outdoors in--our house is on a gorgeous wooded ravine lot. I want a rustic, semi-outdoorsy feel to the kitchen. I'm already planning on either a slate floor or a porcelain slate look-alike in a Versailles pattern. I love Mission-style cabinets, and while I'm a huge fan of the grain in hickory (and we have a lot of hickory trees in the backyard), I'm not sure whether hickory or quarter-sawn oak would be better. Which would you use? I'm leaning toward the pecan stain. (http://www.medallioncabinetry.com/Product.aspx?productID=158&CategoryID=2)

And then there's countertops. Right now the design has two zones--the dishes and sink zone on one half, the cooking zone on another, with a prep island in between. It's basically designed for two people to work together, which is what my husband and I frequently end up doing. I've looked into doing the island in butcher block, but I'm worried about the wood clashing with the cabinets. But if I do the whole thing in either quartz or soapstone, I'm worried about it looking too monotonous.

And would you do quartz or soapstone? We're great at cooking but terrible at cleaning, so I like the low-maintenance of quartz, but I'm concerned that in a kitchen where we're trying to get a nice natural look, quartz will look too manufactured. If you were to go with quartz, any suggestions for a color that would go well with a slate floor and the above cabinets?

I didn't even go into the backsplash...thinking about finding a backsplash that goes with all this sort of gives me the vapors.

Thanks for any help you can give.